Beyond Spend Influence: Enabling Procurement’s Emerging Roles in Business Transformation (Part 5) — Supply Chain / Direct Procurement Influence (Cont.)

In the previous installment of this Spend Matters PRO series, we explored how procurement can improve its influence within the broader supply chain by supporting product/service lifecycles and transcending just basic BoM-based direct materials sourcing workflows. In that piece we explored how procurement can support sales and marketing processes to improve revenue uplift.

In this installment, we will continue our exploration of the rest of the overall value lifecycle from design all the way through to service and then finishing up with supporting the most important aspect: the transformation process itself.

Part 1 of this series laid out the need for leadership in procurement to help bring about transformational change — and how to work with stakeholders. In Part 2, we discussed how progressive procurement organizations were improving their influence through coherent communication and alignment of procurement “services” to various stakeholders.

Part 3 dove into procurement improving its influence into indirect spending and how it can improve how the business gets more value from its spend and its “spend management” process (e.g., dovetailing into the business planning process). Part 4 was an introduction to attention to supply management and direct procurement influence.

Let’s dig into what it takes to create strategic supply partners and also consider the technology vendors needed for extended supply networks.